Michigan men’s basketball came into Saturday night’s game riding an impressive streak. The Wolverines had beaten six straight opponents by 25 points or more, and most of the teams they walloped were pretty decent! Four are currently in the Kenpom top 45 even after getting shellacked by the Wolverines. In the Players Era tournament in Vegas, they beat Kenpom No. 45 San Diego State by 40, No. 29 Auburn by 30, and No. 3 Gonzaga by 40. They also walloped No. 33 Villanova in a 28-point win. They are obliterating teams while playing the ninth-toughest schedule in the country.
The Wolverines continued the early portion of Big Ten conference play* at Maryland last night. While the Terrapins are middling this year, they do force a decent amount of turnovers. Maybe not enough to win, but perhaps enough to confuse Michigan on defense and keep this one close. And credit where it's due: Maryland did break Michigan’s streak of 25-point wins. They shot 14-of-27 on threes, which is the first time they’d been over 50 percent all year; David Coit hit 8 of his 12 threes in a 31-point effort. Maryland’s eFG (a stat that weights threes and twos) was a season-high. Michigan was down by five at half. It was the toughest game the Wolverines had played in at least a month, and one of Maryland's better games of the year. It didn’t matter. Maryland had one of their worst defensive games of the season and couldn’t force turnovers; Michigan shot an eye-popping 70 percent eFG. The Wolverines played their worst defensive game of the year, and so Maryland did break Michigan’s streak of 25-point wins. But the Wolverines still won going away, 101-83.
Saturday’s rout of Maryland came on the shoulders of Yaxel Lendeborg, who played just 11 games in high school and started his career at a junior college. He then spent two years at UAB, before transferring to Michigan as a fifth-year senior. He was already one of the better shooters in the country last season, and this year he’s been one of the very best. Every time Maryland hit another three—the Terrapins built a 9-point lead early in the second—Lendeborg seemed to have a counterpunch ready on the other end. He scored Michigan’s first 10 points after the break. Suddenly it was a 56-55 game. And once Maryland’s defense started keying on him, Michigan’s other players got a lot more space to work with. Lendenborg also had 5 of his 9 assists in the second half; he finished with 29 points. “I’ve been in a lot of positions like that, last year, when I was pretty much the only hope on offense,” Lendenborg said. “I just took it in my hands to reenact it like it was last year. But it’s not. I have a lot of good players, good shooters on my team. Just being able to spread the wealth was easy.”
Maryland still hung around for a bit. A David Coit three made it just 74-71 midway through the second half. But the Wolverines play really fast—12th fastest in the country—and shoot quick, and they force teams to shoot quickly too. Maryland runs a slower offense, and as the game wore on it was clear which team was used to running and gunning for 40 minutes. After Coit’s three, Michigan went on a 14-2 run. The Terrapins were spent. Coit did not score the rest of the game after his trey. Maryland scored just 33 points in the second after dropping 50 in the first.
That was also due to Lendeborg. Maryland’s Pharrel Payne got hurt late in the first half and didn’t return. Lendeborg knew he only had to key in on one guy in the second half, and did. He played excellent defense on Coit and also talked a little trash to boot. “Well, he was pretty much a one-man army throughout the whole game, once Pharrel got injured,” he said. “So honestly, my whole game thing was not letting him test the ball at all. You know, he’s the only offense, in my opinion. So the trash talk came because I kept bumping him down the court from the first time I face-guarded him. I mean, I got mad too, so I was talking smack.”
Michigan went on the road for a conference game, and it was pretty close for 30 minutes. But the Wolverines are such a well-rounded team that the game ended up being an 18-point win. Aday Mara had 18, point guard Elliot Cadeau had 12 and 10 assists, and L.J. Cason added 12 off the bench. It was Michigan’s fourth 100-point game in its last five.
In a post headlined Michigan Is Completely Terrifying, longtime college hoops writer Eamonn Brennan wrote they “are already historically great.” He’s right. Forget about going inside, forget about going left; the Wolverines have effectively foreclosed on all that. Michigan is a bit below average on defense from the right side, and teams have noticed; they are shooting a lot of threes from there. It still doesn’t matter. Michigan opponents shoot just 42.4 on eFG—fifth best in the nation. Factor in an ultrafast tempo that marks a slight departure from previous Dusty May-coached teams and you’ve got a squad that can put things out of reach and keep them there. On Saturday night they bumped a three point lead up to 15 in four minutes.
And Michigan is doing this all against the ninth-toughest schedule in the country according to Kenpom; Arizona’s in the same range—they’re also undefeated, and also notched a lopsided win against 12th-ranked Alabama on Saturday—and the AP has them ahead of in the Top 25. But as CBS’ Matt Norlander put it on Saturday: While Arizona has the best résumé, Michigan sure seems to have the best team in the country. The Big Ten had better be ready.
Correction (1:45 p.m.): Rutgers actually began conference play last weekend, beating Rutgers by 41 points, in a game whose final score was [Redacted] to 60.
